Conventional autostereoscopic displays use arrays of lenses or parallax barriers or other view selectors to make a number of pixels of the display visible to one eye of a viewing person and to make a number of other pixels of the display visible to the other eye of the viewing person. By isolating the pixels of the display visible to each eye, the two components of a stereoscopic image can be presented on the display.
Since an ordinary viewer's eyes are side-by-side and aligned horizontally, the array of lenses makes pixels visible according to horizontal orientation. As a result, corresponding pixels for the left and right eyes are located in the same scanline and displaced from one another horizontally.
Each eye of the viewer therefore sees an image whose horizontal resolution is halved in an autostereoscopic displays having only two views. In most autostereoscopic displays, field of view is improved by having more than just two views. In attempts to provide greater perceived depths of projection, many more views—e.g., 24 views—are required. A typical LCD display screen has a pixel density of about 200 pixels per inch, though some have densities approaching 300 pixels per inch or more. That's approximately 6 pixels per millimeter, i.e., sufficient resolution to provide 24 views in a 4 mm space.
For some stereoscopic video content, perceived pixels that are 4 mm wide might be adequate. However, not all video content is the same. For some stereoscopic video content, it may be preferred to have fewer views but to have finer horizontal display resolution. In particular, if the display is to also sometimes display video content that is not stereoscopic, it would be preferable that the lenticular array not group views in groups that are 24 pixels and 4 mm wide but instead provide full horizontal resolution or as near to full horizontal resolution as possible.
In conventional autostereoscopic displays, such reconfiguration is only achievable, if at all, by physical removal of the lenticular array and perhaps replacement with a different lenticular array.